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“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied. (Mark 15:2)

Pilate then went back inside the palace,
summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Is that your own
idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” “Am I a Jew?” Pilate
replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it
you have done?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my
servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my
kingdom is from another place.” “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus
answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came
into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth
listens to me.” (John 18:33-37)

The events of the Easter story
are the culmination of a long journey. When the Son of God quietly appeared out
the back of a Bethlehem motel, nothing was happening to herald its
significance. Even when the angelic choir appeared it was witnessed only by
shepherds. When a particular star was noticed by some Persian astrologers,
their journey didn’t really bring the brass bands into the streets for a
parade. In spite of this, the reality was that more than two thousand years of
history was waiting for this moment. Every book in the Old Testament contained
mysteries that would only be revealed when Jesus came.

The journey from Bethlehem to
Calvary was similarly a somewhat mysterious affair. Jesus was the Messiah but
the only people who were willing to acknowledge this was a motley crew of
individuals with questionable credentials by any standard. But the cross and
the resurrection to follow were the events that separated history and changed
the world. Looking back through the window they provide, we can see a clear and
consistent storyline where the small events that happened over three years of
Jesus’ ministry lead very clearly to his appointment with Calvary.

I am convinced that Jesus is the
rightful King of the universe. The world as we know it and the people who
inhabit it were created to be part of the realm over which he ruled. I believe
that what we should be celebrating each year is the coronation ceremony of our
king. What was a symbol of fear and shame in the eyes of the world was actually
the accession of our king to his rightful throne. If it is hard to think about
the cross as a rite of passage to the throne, then perhaps it is because we
have not fully realised that Jesus is a very different kind of king from any we
may be otherwise aware and he rules a very different kind of kingdom than any
other. It will be vital for us to understand the differences lest we end up
trying to build the kingdom of God as an earthly kingdom rather than one that
represents the culture and glory of heaven.

WHO????

It is clear that there was
contention from the very beginning. You can’t imagine a baby born in a stable
in Bethlehem being a threat to anything; nor can you believe that the son of a
carpenter from a no-name place like Nazareth would amount to much. But as the
old man Simeon said of him, “This child is destined to cause the falling
and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against….”
(Luke 2:34) The fact was and is that the presence of Jesus on the earth
was always going to threaten the incumbent illegitimate rulers. We can see
through the course of his ministry that he didn’t walk up and down outside the
temple with placards, nor did he abuse the authority of Rome, but his life, ministry
and message posed a direct threat to each of them. If we can gain an
understanding of why this was so, we will better understand how the cross and
resurrection stand as ultimate signs of the battles that go on in every
generation. We might, then, be better placed to know how we should engage with
the illegitimate kingdoms of our own day.

The first of those authorities
was the ruthless domination of Rome. Rome’s presence in Judea and Galilee was
represented by various officials (including Pontius Pilate) and the Herodian
kings (Herod the Great and Herod Antipas). Jesus was born during the last
decade of the rule of Herod the Great, and it was this old Idumean puppet ruler
who had ordered the children from Bethlehem to be killed when informed by the
Persian magi that the signs told them of the birth of a king. Jesus had
experienced a period of exile in Egypt as a result of Herod’s paranoid
ruthlessness. It was his son, Antipas who arrested and beheaded John the
Baptist and the same ruler to whom Jesus was sent, at first, by Pilate on the
night of his arrest. The passage we are looking at today records the final
encounter between Jesus and the Roman authorise as Pilate tries to find a way
to avoid trouble and avoid sending Jesus to the cross. Pilate’s primary concern
is to find out whether Jesus is some kind of “king.” Rome either made
you a vassal or a victim. Kings needed to be appointed by Rome or be executed.

The second group of having
adversarial authority during the life and ministry of Jesus was the various
groups recognised as governing the religious life of Israel. They had the
scriptures, they governed what happened in the temple, celebrated the
festivals, policed the rabbinic traditions based on various interpretations of
the Scriptures. Their power base was vested in the Jewish ruling council known
as the Sanhedrin. This Sanhedrin was the Supreme Court of Israel and exercised
immense authority within the Jewish communities of Judea and Galilee. Their
fierce determination to protect their heritage from Abraham and Moses was the
stand out reactionary group within the whole of the Empire. The Romans tried to
find a way of working with them without relaxing their hold on power, but it
was an unholy alliance from both points of view. The groups involved under this
umbrella include the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and Teachers of the law.
They are all represented throughout the gospel accounts and are ubiquitous
opponents of Jesus and his ministry.

The third group is a little
harder to define but very easy to identify: I am referring to the Satan and the
powers of darkness. This group has two distinct roles. The first is to empower
and manipulate the people groups mentioned above and the second is to be
directly involved in killing, stealing and destroying the lives, vocations,
hopes and futures of people in all walks of life through indiscriminate acts of
violation. We are told later in the New Testament that Satan uses four
different weapons to usurp the authority that belongs to Jesus: control,
manipulation, deception and direct destructive force (Ephesians 6:12). The
first time we get a clear picture of demonic activity follows the baptism of
Jesus at the Jordan. Jesus is strategically led to the desert to confront the
devil in a direct series of encounters. Jesus successfully repels the Satanic
suggestions (unlike the first Adam who succumbed). We are told the “devil
left Jesus until an opportune time”(Luke 4:13) If you have any familiarity with the stories
in the gospels you will notice that Satan shows up frequently: in the form of
demonised people and through demonically concocted natural and human
circumstances (storms on the lake). At the end when Jesus goes to Jerusalem for
the last time, we are told Satan enters Judas (Luke 22:3) and tries to sift
Peter like wheat (Luke 22:31).

WHEN??????

I would love you to think with me
as to when Jesus became King. I am aware that some will want to point out that
Jesus was always a king and that what was happening from Bethlehem to Calvary
was the king taking back territory that was rightfully his. Of course, that is
true. The “when” question for you is to ask “When did Jesus take
that rule back?”

Another group of people might
want to tell me that even though Jesus has appeared as Saviour and Lord, his
kingly rule waits for his second coming. I think the traditional way of saying
this is, “Jesus, Saviour, Lord and soon-coming King,” or the Aimee
Semple McPherson version, “Saviour, Baptiser with the Spirit, Healer and
Coming King.” This, of course, has truth at its heart as well. Jesus final
coming will be the consummation of the ages and will see satanic presence in
the world completely destroyed. The question for this group is going to be,
“When did Jesus begin to take up his rightful rule of the universe?”

My own view is that, just as
Jesus was the “Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the
world,”(Revelation 13:8) we all know that the “slaying” took
place at a particular time and in a specific place. It is that time-and-place
event that we celebrate at Easter. It is important. No, it is the very core of
everything about our faith. No cross, no Christianity. No resurrection, no
Christianity. No cross, no kingdom of God. No resurrection, no kingdom of God.
As Paul tells us, it is the bottom line. (1 Corinthians 15). But it is not the
bottom line for religious or ceremonial reasons. It is not just to keep the
paperwork right. It is because of what was happening through the cross and what
happened at the resurrection that makes it the bottom line.

My proposition goes like this:
Jesus became king on the day we call “Good Friday.” Isn’t it amazing that the cross is the
pinnacle of the glory of Jesus Christ, like one of the old song declares:

“This is Jesus in his glory,

King of heaven dying for me.

It is finished he has done it.

Death is beaten; heaven beckons me.”

In the eyes of this world’s kingdom, it is a symbol of failure
and the worst kind of shame. It was designed by the Romans to be the ultimate
deterrent. Less than a hundred years before Jesus, the famous slave/gladiator,
Spartacus had rallied thousands of other gladiators to oppose Rome. After a few
successful battles (The Third Servile War) Crassus was dispatched with eight
legions. When the rebels were defeated, 6,000 of them were crucified along the
Appian way as a symbol of Rome’s attitude to rebels. It was so with the death
of Jesus of Nazareth. The charge sheet was nailed above his head. The words
were written in three languages, Greek, Latin and Hebrew: “This is Jesus,
the King of the Jews.”

I know there have been many
theories about Jesus going to hell and taking the keys from Satan and all of
that. Some of it has modest Biblical warrant. What we know for sure is that it
was Jesus’ death that defied the power of sin and death.

When you were dead in your
sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ.
He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal
indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away,
nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he
made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians
2:13-15)

So, the cross of Jesus Christ was
the event that declared his victory. It was his version of a triumphal march
into the city. Funny that he had experienced a prophetic event less than a week
before as he entered the city on the colt of a donkey. Brian Zahn has recently
made a compelling connection between the coming of Jesus to the city about the
same time as Pontius Pilate came to the city from the base of his operations in
Caesarea. He came to personally supervise things during the most volatile time
of the year, at the feast of the Passover. Zahn points out that Pilate entered
the city riding on a horse – may be a white horse, who knows. The symbols of
Rome’s power accompanied him: enough soldiers to quell any riot that might
occur and enforce any order Rome might feel like imposing. It was a preliminary
show of force designed to warn everyone to behave. He represented the most
powerful ruler in the world at that time.

Jesus came differently. He came
on a small colt. It might have been so short that Jesus had to drag his feet
along the ground. He came with no soldiers. He came with no preparations for
any kind of fanfare. The closest thing to weapons on display were palm branches
being laid out on the road in front of him. There was no kind of coercion at
all, but the people began to shout out the messianic greeting from Psalm 118, “Blessed
is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.” This
was brought about by a different presence than that of the Roman provincial
governor. When the religious authorities berated Jesus and told him to stop the
people from making a messianic claim, Jesus could only reply that if they were
stopped, the stones would cry out in their place. Such was the presence of a
very different kind of coming King. The promised Messiah (which means ‘King’ of
course) was the Son of David promised through the pages of the Scriptures.
There was another significant difference between the Roman ruler and Jesus.
When Pilate arrived in the city, he would have gone to his lavish well-guarded
quarters and rested, away from the troublesome belligerents. When Jesus came to
the end of his parade, he fell down and wept for love over the resistant
stubbornness of people whom he wanted to protect and nurture.

This king’s coronation was
celebrated differently. This King was laying down his life to defeat the very
powers of sin and death. He was declaring the universal advance of the kingdom
of God. It began through his own ministry and then through the 120 who would
remain in Jerusalem. The church would be become the body of Christ in every
part of the earth to make known to earthly and the heavenly authorities that
the rule of God was not by intimidation and control. It was not by manipulation
or by deceit. This power would not be accessed by destroying what was innocent
and good. It would be the power of sacrificial love. It was the power of
redemption. Jesus coronation trumpeted a sound that few people at the scene
understood. Sin and darkness were held up to ridicule. They were publicly
shamed by divine love and the offer of free and full pardon and redemption to
every person. This kind ruled through that very love. It is the only mark of
his rule. The justice he brings is not about winning or losing. It is about
redemptive purpose. The coronation of this king heralds the opportunity for
people to be reconciled to God and to their vocation as children of God. It is
an opportunity for individuals to celebrate the fact that they bear the image
of God. They are designed to carry his presence and to fulfil his purpose. He
is the king of that kind of kingdom.

HOW????

When Jesus uttered the words
“It is finished,” we have to be clear about exactly what was
finished. If you read through the sermons in the Book of Acts and the
references to the cross in the letters it is clear that the power of sin and
death were defeated. Satan’s weapon for keeping people separated from God was
unforgiven sin. The death of Jesus on the cross, as told by Jesus and the
apostles, was a “ransom for many.” I am not going to pour through the
atonement theories. I am more interested in outcomes than theories. All I know
is that all of us now have access to God. Our sin has been carried where we can
never find it. Satan’s basis of power is broken. Jesus has assumed his place as
King of his Kingdom and Head of his Body, the church. It is his resurrection
that declares the ultimacy of a new life. We are raised with him. This is a
present reality as well as a future hope. We get the chance to live a new life
with new citizenship (of heaven) and a new mission – to finish the job.

When Jesus came back to Galilee
from the wilderness, his agenda was obvious: “The times have been
fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.”
(Mark 1:16) If the kingdom of God was “at hand” it is logical to
assume that the presence of Jesus represented such a kingdom. When you have a
few hours free to do something important, I suggest you read through one or
other of the gospels and see precisely how that was worked for Jesus. It is the
presence of Jesus himself that makes the kingdom of God near. As you come to
each story, notice how Jesus turns each incident into a manifestation of the
kingdom of God. You should also see how different the kingdom of God is and how
differently Jesus models it. I dare you to remain unchanged in less than three
chapters. More to the point, Jesus was the King doing royal kingdom of God
works all the way to the cross. When he healed the king of health exercised the
will of heaven over another ‘king’ (Satan) who wanted to steal that person’s
health. When he cast out a demon, it was the king of freedom exercising his
will over the ‘king’ (also called the ‘prince of this world’) of oppression and
bondage. When an adulterous woman was brought to him on the assumption that she
should be punished, it was the king of forgiveness ruling over the king of
guilt and shame.

On all of these were occasions,
the kingdom of God was advancing. Jesus told a crowd that this kingdom had been
happening since the time of John the Baptist. (Matthew 11:12) There can be no
kingdom without a king. Otherwise, it would have to be an ‘earldom’ or a
‘dukedom’ or, more commonly a ‘selfdom.’ This is more important than it may
look. Cultures like my own (Australian) are heavily weighted toward
self-centeredness and self-determination. As such, we tend to preserve our own
‘selfdoms.’ As a result, we like the idea of building communities based on
kingdom values just so long as the idea of serving the ‘King’ is conveniently
set aside. This is a problem in the church. We have churches that are
profoundly committed to espousing kingdom values -e.g. providing amazing and
heartfelt care for the poor. They are willing to suggest that the work of
feeding the hungry and clothing the naked is a kingdom work of and by itself.
And there is no doubt; it is wonderful work. My issue is that it is not
necessarily kingdom work. Jesus, himself, tells us how to distinguish a kingdom
of God work:

“You are the light of
the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a
lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives
light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before
others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in
heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)

When people glorify the God, we
serve because of what he has done through us, we can be assured that it is a
kingdom of God work. Jesus made it quite clear and public that he was acting
only on the initiative of his Father. He constantly pointed people to his
Father and not to himself. When people saw the kingly works in operation, they
praised God for what they saw. Our culture loves people who do good works as
long as they are detached from any association with King Jesus. As a result, we
have been too willing to oblige them. As I said before, Jesus was very up-front
about his relationship to the Father. Numerous times in the gospel of John he
is recorded as saying, “I only do what I see the Father doing.”[1] The work of the kingdom is to follow this
model explicitly. We are to live the whole of our lives out of this
relationship and do the works that flow from it. Just think for more than two
seconds what is happening when we offer people some good works that might well
cause people to say nice things about us, but to deny the Person to whom they
belong and to suggest that they should happen without such a relationship. At
best we are stealing his glory. At worst we are refusing to proclaim a gospel
that has the power to change lives forever.

So, the church is to continue the
ministry of Jesus – i.e. of living as servants of the kingdom and allowing
others to know the good news that it is accessible. The church is meant to be
the people living on the earth who, by the presence and power of the Spirit,
give this kingdom tangible and visible form – everywhere. It means we will be
challenging every other kingdom that happens to be operating in its place. I
don’t know whether you are aware of it or not, but there is no space on or
around the planet that doesn’t have some kind of incumbent ruler. Something or
someone will always be exercising transcending influence. You have to read
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians about ten times to get a feel for this. I would
suggest you read it in two parts. Read 1:1 to 4:16 ten times. Make some notes.
Tell the story it is telling in your own words and then make a summary of what
it would look like if what you have been reading was happening. Then read 4:17
to the end the same number of times. Try not to get bogged down in detail. Try
to catch the flow of what is being said. Then do the same as before: tell the
story it tells and then figure out what it would look like if that stuff was
happening. And if you still have the inclination at the end of all that, figure
out what steps need to be taken to get from here to there. Among other things,
the Ephesian letter gives a consummate picture of how the church. In my way of
thinking, it is an apostolic view of the church in the real sense. Here are
three mountain peaks on the horizon of Paul’s letter:

ONENESS “Heirs together with
Israel, members together of one body and sharers together in the promised in
Christ Jesus” Ephesians 2

INTIMACY “We can all approach
God with freedom and confidence.” Ephesians 3/4

FULNESS “Until we all reach
unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,
attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ.” Ephesians 4

This is the way Jesus will make
his kingly rule known. People who live in the communities of which this kind of
church is a part will get to see the Jesus of the gospels. They will see it
only if the church makes it tangible. He must be the tangible head, and the
church must be his tangible body. There are a thousand ways this can be made
known, and we have to learn to excel in them. It’s simple, but not easy. But it
is the only thing worth pursuing for every church everywhere.

WHY??????

Why is it essential that we
recognise the cross as the coronation ceremony for our King? I think there are
two things to be said. The first is written about in Ephesians chapter three
and the beginning of chapter four. The church is to make known the mystery and
plan of God. That mystery is the fact that a new kind of humanity has been
invented: people in Christ – not Australian people, or Chinese people – just
people in Christ. When Paul prayed for this group of people, he prayed that
they would know the love of Christ and the unity of the faith. Love and unity
are the markers of a new kingdom. When this kingdom fully comes, we will have
become the new heaven and the new earth spoken about in Revelation 21 and 22.
That’s what we are supposed to be prophetically foreshadowing. We are meant to
be the living testament to that ultimate reality. It is not about an event
where those of us who are in Christ will have the pleasure of seeing all the terrible
people burning in hell – as some preachers would like to paint a picture. Yes,
there will be a final judgment and a separation, but the consummation of the
ages will be the completion of what Jesus began. It will be completed as the
church fulfils is calling on the earth. We are already part of a city God is
building, not made with hands, eternal in the heavenly realm. It is an
operation that runs on love and unity because that’s how heaven works. God’s
kind of love displayed by Jesus and commissioned for the church is the
sacrificial Calvary kind of love. It is the combination of John 3:16 and 1 John
3:16.

For God so
loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the
world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him

This is
how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought
to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

God’s kind of unity is declared
openly by Jesus in John 17 where he prays for the disciples of every
generation, asking that they may experience his indwelling presence in such a
way that they will become one after the relationship between Jesus and his
Father. Because God’s kingdom is love-based oneness, it can only happen through
free-will choosing. There is no love without free-will. It’s the same as the
love that causes a man and a woman to stand somewhere before God and commit
their lives to one another because of love that has come from their choosing.
Its the same as the love we have for our children – who have their own
free-will. We love them freely and wonderfully. Hopefully, they grow up loving
us because they choose to. This new heaven and new earth will be comprised of
people who have made that choice about Jesus. Because it is a matter of
free-will, then it is possible for us to choose not to love and to choose not
to pursue oneness. The resurrection of Jesus declares this calling valid. His
presence and the Holy Spirit power that has been poured out makes it possible.

Let’s agree that these must be
the things that shape us and our mission on the earth.

CONCLUSION: VICTORY is through DEATH and
RESURRECTION

Jesus’s accession to the throne
of the universe was through death leading to resurrection. The cross can only
be associated with death. Everyone who went to a cross went to a horrible
death. No one survived the cross. Jesus not only rose from the dead but pioneered
a way of life that was going to celebrate both cross and resurrection. Death
now becomes the doorway to a new life. This is the new principle. Paul was
clear enough about. He said he faced
death every day in some way. And so do we. There are all kinds of things that
happen in our lives where we experience the pain and suffering of ‘death:’ when
a marriage fails, when we suffer some sort of debilitating sickness when
someone close to us dies – and a million other ways.

We are the people whose life is
defined by the resurrection from the dead. We need to have no fear of death,
not in the metaphorical sense nor the literal. Jesus’ resurrection is the
guarantee of a new life following death. It is weird to the cultural
sensitivities of the kingdoms of this world. In those kingdoms, death either
rules (as it does in some cultures where they are shaped by death) or it is
avoided. Christians are the only ones who can face death with all of the
sadness that it may bring, but with hope. That hope is the new life that Jesus
walked out of the tomb to proclaim. It is our heritage, our privilege and our
hope.

We need to become the people who
have twenty stories to tell of resurrection. Sadly, so many believers are still
locked into the pattern of this world. They remain imprisoned by some death
they have experienced but have not embraced the resurrection from death that
Jesus will always offer. Our Christian lives begin with this kind of
experience: we commit to Christ and are baptised. That baptism is a burial ceremony
of our former life, and it is the sign of rising from the watery grave to a new
life – totally free from any obligation to our old “master” and
freely bonded to our new master, Jesus. The rest of our Christian life ought to
boast of similar experiences as we “put to death” things that need to
die and “bury” things that have died. It seems that we are more
likely to dwell on the death when we should be celebrating the resurrection.
And by the way, that process is called “redemption.” It is a new life,
a better life, renewed life is given in the face of death. When we face our
physical death, it should be nothing more than a macro-version of what we have
known in many foreshadowing experiences throughout our lifetime.

So, Jesus has become the king. He
is a different kind of king than any we have seen or will see among the samples
of human kingdoms. The realm it creates operates through the same kind of
self-giving love to build a new heaven and a new earth ruled by this kind of
love. You can see the battle lines being drawn even as we say this. Just think
about a few community spheres where you spend regular time and realise how they
are built on ego, power and manipulation. This is radical but has the power to
transform darkness into light, death into life, despair into joy and
imprisonment into freedom. In this kingdom, the King is present all of the
time. His presence is accessible and his power available – resurrection power.
Let us pursue resurrection through death and make this kingdom and its King,
Jesus, visible to the people who have no other way of seeing other than
ourselves.

John 5:30 I can do
nothing by Myself; I judge only as I hear. And My judgment is just, because I
do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven, not to
do My own will, but to do the will of Him who sent Me. John 8:28 So
Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know
that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own, but speak exactly what the
Father has taught Me. John 12:49 I
have not spoken on My own, but the Father who sent Me has commanded Me what to
say and how to say it. John 12:50
And I know that His command leads to eternal
life. So I speak exactly what the Father has told Me to say.” John 14:10 Do
you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I
say to you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the Father dwelling in Me,
performing His works.